There was a period of time after their heart-breaking, one-point loss to Mountain Lakes in the state semifinals last season that the Scotch Plains-Fanwood boys used for mourning.

That period of time lasted only as long as it took the team bus to get back on campus.

``It was tough to lose by a point and we buried it in the back of our minds,’’ Scotch Plains junior Greg Baliko said. ``Back on the bus, it was like, we are going to come back here. We never forgot where our season ended, and we knew we were good enough to go further this time.’’

It was that kind of resolve which carried the Union County power into position to make school history. Scotch Plains, No. 7 in The Star-Ledger Top 20, upended No. 10 Mountain Lakes, 99-71, in the NJSIAA Public B state semifinals yesterday at The Bubble in West Windsor.

Scotch Plains (14-1), which qualified for the state finals for the first time in 10 years, will be aiming to secure its first state title on Sunday when it faces No. 8 Princeton (16-0) for the Public B state championship, 10:30 a.m. at The College of New Jersey in Ewing. Princeton was a 92-78 winner over No. 5 Haddonfield yesterday in the other Public B semifinal.

Scotch Plains senior Mike Napolitano, winner of the 500-yard freestyle (4:49.94), said the opportunity to earn the school’s first boys state title in swimming was one the team had been thinking about since last February.

``We knew the potential was there to go all the way after we lost last season,’’ said Napolitano, speaking of Scotch Plains’ 85.5-84.5 loss to Mountain Lakes last winter. ``But we left it at that because we had other things to take care of first. We took it step by step and now we’re back. Now we have our opportunity.’’

Scotch Plains began to place some distance between itself and Mountain Lakes, coming off its eighth straight North Jersey, Section 1 title, in the 200 individual medley when Baliko won in 1:57.02 and Napolitano and Dan Pesin finished third and fourth, respectively, for a 30-16 lead. And by the time junior Joe Dunn had won the 50 free (21.90) and 100 butterfly (52.72), the lead was 52-26.

``They have a lot of good swimmers over there,’’ Mountain Lakes coach Dave Leshnower said. ``They’re a little bit more experienced than last year and they came in hungry for bear. They knew what they wanted to do, and I wish them all the luck.’’